


Know Your Enemy

by sttunny (tunny)



Category: American Idiot - All Media Types, American Idiot - Green Day/Armstrong
Genre: Death Threats, Drug Use, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunny/pseuds/sttunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m going out for a smoke,” Johnny said, rolling out of the bed and heading for the door. He didn’t come back for two hours. He had no idea what happened to those two hours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Know Your Enemy

**Author's Note:**

> i guess i specialize in fics that make people cry but ok

_Do you know the enemy?_

Johnny bolted awake, his heart pounding and veins pulsing. He craved it, now more than ever.

_Do you know your enemy?_

He stumbled out of bed, away from Whatsername’s arms, and to the kitchen counter. It was pitch black, meaning either it was 4am or the end of the world. He really couldn’t tell anymore. The floorboards of the apartment creaked as Johnny staggered to the countertop, where he knew Jimmy’s presents would be waiting. Jimmy always left him presents when he bolted, and he seemed to be awake at any hour to comfort Johnny through the sensation.

_Well, gotta know the enemy, wa-hey._

“Jimmy?” Johnny uttered into the receiver, clutching the phone as if it were his last means of communication. “I need you. I need help. Please.”  
Jimmy didn’t stop to sigh or mention something offhandedly, which separated him from Tunny and Will. “I’ll be right over,” a voice responded before the line went dead.  
Johnny dropped the phone, ignoring the loud clunk it made as it collided with the counter below. He turned from the set on the wall to the counter, where a small bottle of white pills and a new syringe lay. He recalled Jimmy’s uttering as he left this batch, something along the lines of “You just can’t get enough, can you?” When these presents were first laid out, Jimmy would attach sticky notes to the top, with his signature heart and upside-down cross. Of course, Johnny knew who left them now, and Jimmy had gotten cold enough that he stopped leaving notes.

_The insurgency will rise when the blood’s been sacrificed._

Johnny followed Jimmy down a dangerous path, like something he’d seen in a creepy film. The tightrope of sanity that the two of them walked was thinning, and while Jimmy navigated the dwindling strand of hope without fear, Johnny felt as if he’d fall any minute. With every injection, every high Jimmy put him through the rope would pull thinner. At some point, he’d either fall off or reach the end of the diminishing walk of trust. At least, that’s what he hoped would happen.

_Don’t be blinded by the lies in your eyes._

Jimmy never knocked, as he felt he had no reason to. With one hand grasping a pack of Camels, he strode across the room to where Johnny stood trembling. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen his friend do this before – Johnny handled drugs pretty poorly – but the sight of him in such a poor condition always struck a chord for Jimmy. He wasn’t sure which chord exactly, but it was a chord nonetheless.  
The warm hand that touched Johnny’s shoulder came as a relief, like a light shining down from the heavens. The patron saint of the denial was here. “J-Jimmy…” Johnny stuttered, holding out the drugs as if asking for a hand. Without saying a word, Jimmy took the items from his friend and led him to a chair. He gritted his teeth, pushing Johnny into the chair and getting down on his knees so he could help him shoot up.

_Silence is the enemy against your urgency, so rally up the demons of your soul._

“You have to learn to do this on your own,” Jimmy muttered, prepping the needle. Johnny agreed – at least he was being treated like a human being today, rather than a plaything. When Jimmy thought of him as a person, his fingers moved along his glass skin, words being whispered into his delicate ears. “I won’t always be around to help you out.”  
“But you’re here to help me out now,” Johnny murmured back, wincing as the cold tip of the needle plunged into his veins. “D-don’t ever leave me, Jimmy. I c-couldn’t survive a day without you.”  
Jimmy laughed. “You’re drunk as fuck, so wait until that wears off before you ask me for something like that.” He pulled out the needle and kissed the spot where it had been moments before. Johnny opened his mouth to utter something, but Jimmy stopped him by sliding a little white pill into his mouth. Johnny swallowed it. With his work done, Jimmy slammed the half-full bottle on the floor and stood up. “I’m leaving.”  
“No-o-o, don’t leave,” Johnny murmured. “Stay here. My highs are always great when you’re here.”  
But Jimmy had already left without making a sound. He did this often, and Johnny wondered why he always fell for believing that he could change Jimmy’s mind. Nobody count change Saint Jimmy’s mind.

_Overthrow the effigies, the vast majority, while burning down the foreman of control._

Johnny sat at the table, shaking like any other drug addict would. He could feel the rope beneath him shrinking as his high began to set in. He wished he could stop, he wished he could tell Jimmy ‘no’, that he could finally be free from his best friend’s tantalizing treats of hopelessness. Fed up with hoping and wishing and thinking, Johnny threw his head into his hands and began to recite his old mantra, that he came up with back in Jingletown. “A-and there's nothing wrong with me,” he croaked, gripping the used needle. “This is h-how I'm supposed to be.” Eyes forced shut, arms shaking with the dawning high, Johnny could barely get out the words to his motto from long ago. “In a land of make-believe that don't believe in me.”  
How silly the words sounded to him now, after everything he’d been through. Yet he knew the mantra would become a well-used phrase as the walls closed in, and he said to himself what he said every time he had these thoughts: that Jimmy knew best. Jimmy knew what he was doing, and though he led Johnny down this tightrope, he never teetered, never felt as if he was going to fall. That was better than Johnny was doing now, though, and since it was too late to turn back, the only thing he could do now was walk forward and hope to god that Jimmy knew what he was doing.

_Violence is an energy against the enemy._

The first thing Whatsername asked when she woke up the next morning was “Who were you talking to last night?”  
“What?” Johnny replied, rolling over on the battered mattress they shared.  
“You were talking to someone on the phone last night.”  
"No, I wasn’t.” Johnny knew he had called Jimmy last night, and yet he had lied to Whatsername again.  
“I’m sure you were,” Whatsername said, although not accusingly. “Okay, though, whatever you say.”  
And then silence. Neither of them knew what to say to each other, which went to show that Johnny knew his friend better than he knew his own girlfriend.   
“I’m going out for a smoke,” Johnny said, rolling out of the bed and heading for the door.  
He didn’t come back for two hours. He had no idea what happened to those two hours.

_Well, violence is an energy, wa-hey._

The days Johnny spent arguing with Whatsername grew and grew, and the nights when he ended up bent over the bathroom sink got more and more exhausting. On these nights, Johnny made it a habit of his to stare at himself in the mirror and recite his mantra. Some nights, he cried in the bathtub. Others, he threw up in the toilet and passed out moments later. He never really knew what the outcome would be.  
Often, he woke up in the morning in weird places. Once, he woke up in the bathroom of a 7/11, with an employee furiously banging at the door. He’d begun to black out often, too – he would find himself standing over the unconscious body of a member of the Saint’s posse, or he’d come into consciousness to find a gang member straggling away from him, bloodied and bruised. Every time it happened, Johnny felt himself asking, _Did I do this?_ He was sure he didn’t.

_Do you know the enemy? Do you know your enemy?_

Whatsername began to spend nights away from the apartment they’d shared. However, whenever Jimmy was bored or lonely, Jimmy was always there to comfort him with kisses and drugs. Jimmy was always there to help him out.

_Well, gotta know the enemy, wa-hey._

Johnny finally got the courage to look at himself at 2am on a Tuesday night in July. He looked worse than he ever thought was possible. His eyes were sunken and carried deep purple bags, his skin was pale, and he had obtained an uncontrollable shaking in his hands and chattering of his teeth. His stomach was constantly in pain, and he could barely see straight, let alone fix himself up. Besides a recovery clinic, he had nowhere to go, and nothing to do but pray this’d be over soon. His mantra was spoken aloud tonight – after all, he had nothing else to hide, and he knew if this was how death felt, he wanted it to be over quickly. The knife he’d nabbed from the kitchen sat hungrily on the counter, almost begging Johnny to use it.

“And there's nothing wrong with me-“

_The insurgency will rise_

“This is how I'm supposed to be-”

_When the blood's been sacrificed._

“In a land of make-believe-“

_Don't be blinded._

“That don't believe in me-“

_Silence is the enemy._

A footstep came from behind him.

_From here to eternity.  
_

He white-knuckled the knife, knowing whoever was out there had to go down with him. He heard the door behind him slide open.

_Well, violence is an energy._

Johnny swung around, ready to beat the shit out of whoever this was.

Jimmy was the enemy. Jimmy was the enemy. Jimmy was the enemy.  
But was he?

_Do you know your, do you know your enemy?!_

Johnny watched Whatsername scramble backwards as he swung the knife, spitting out curses he’d only ever heard his stepdad use. He watched her terrified face crumble as he spewed slurs at her, making threats about her going down with him. It’d be just like Romeo and Juliet.

_Do you know the enemy?_

He knew what he was doing. He knew if he didn’t kill the both of them soon, the aftermath of the drugs would take him out. He could feel the space around him grabbing, twisting, pulling him down to his knees. His eyes flickered closed, then back open. He could kill her right now. So he lunged at her, knife bared and eyes cold and dark.

_Well, gotta know your enemy._

But before he reached her, the drugs kicked in, and he was sprawled on the floor, passing out. Did he know his enemy? It couldn’t’ve been Jimmy, but it couldn’t be Whatsername.  
And a split second before he hit the floor, he had a mind-numbing realization.  
His enemy had to be himself.

 _Do you know the enemy?_  
  



End file.
